“We all thought the bird was dead, but like a phoenix the bird has risen. Ten years after their second full-length Twilight Ritual, Arkansas based Deadbird – featuring Rwake vocalist Christopher Terry and drummer Jeff Morgan – are alive and kicking and ready to spread their wings and flap doom into your face.” There’s a Deadbird in the sky! Everybody wonders why.
“Today’s Horna-meets-Gorgoroth-meets-The Deathtrip second-wave sound is courtesy of Finland’s Rodent Epoch. Admittedly, when I first read the band name and saw the album title, I couldn’t help but think of that villain from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons. Which made me question Rodent Epoch’s debut full-length, Rodentlord: is it a cartoon or is it for real? Let’s see what this Rat King thing is all about.” Vermin, vermout.
“We’ve all been there. You find a new band and everything seems great. Their riffs are sick, their songwriting is tight, and they have an ample discography for you to explore. But then, something starts smelling foul. They have a record called Incorrigible Bigotry. They have a song called ‘Hereditary Taint.’ They have a lyric that talks about a foreign warrior being ‘unable to grasp the shortcomings of his brood.’ Suddenly, it dawns on you: your new favorite band is fucking racist.” Hate lives outside the Hall.
“There are few things that break my heart quite like seeing people with passion give their all to something and fail anyway. It’s inevitable in many cases, and often funny (darkly or otherwise), but something about it tugs at the heartstrings. Apropos of nothing let’s discuss Once, a German band named, presumably, for the Nightwish album you just thought of. Having toiled in the underground for a half-decade, Once are finally here with a debut album, After Earth. How does it stack up against the glut of material in their chosen milieu of symphonic power metal?” Once is enough.
“Outer Heaven is a Pennsylvania death metal quintet who sound like every loogie you’ve ever hocked up coming to life and bursting out of your toilet while you’re taking a shit. After being floored by their “Into Hellfire” single earlier this year, I’m pleased to admit their Realms of Eternal Decay debut more than lives up to the strange and wonderful world of Metal Gear – even if the connection is in name only.” Solid.
“Okay kiddies, gather around Uncle Steel, Witchfinder General and Keeper of the Sacred Banhammer. It’s time for another metal history lesson. Once upon a time there was a little band called Heir Apparent. They played what we now might call prog-power and they were heavily influenced by the early works of Queensrÿche and Fates Warning. Their 1986 debut, Graceful Inheritance is a forgotten gem, featuring a dated but highly impressive take on proggy melodic metal, full of hooks and overflowing with talent.” Out of thin Heir!
“Symphonic metal wraps up the teenage rebelliousness of heavy music in the comforting folds of palatable vocals, unsubtle melodies, and often attractive front-women for fans to drool over. Is this an oversimplification? Perhaps, but I would have a hard time being persuaded that there is not some truth in this. Leah aims for greater things.” Aim big, miss bigly.
“October is here! In one all-too-short month, we receive Halloween, fall colors, pumpkin spice everything, and a veritable smorgasbord of quality metal releases. My first October release comes courtesy of Vanhelgd with their fifth LP, Deimos Sanktuarium. To get a good baseline for the band, I decided to take a stroll down Vanhelgd’s back catalog. What I beheld was doom-laden but familiar Swedish death metal á la At the Gates. I am a fan of Swedeath, but Vanheldg’s more established contemporaries haven’t won me over as of late.” Pumpkins, goblins and Swedeath.
“Face it, there’s no one that sounds like Celtic Frost, or even Hellhammer before that. No one… Wait, what’s this?! A two-man band from France and Holland that praise the ground Hellhammer once walked on?! With a debut record called Infernal Moon?! And with the band name of… DungeönHammer…?? Wtf??” How’s the Hammer hangin’?
“If you read lists of what women find attractive in men, Number Three is always a sense of humor. Since most men (including myself) will never have Numbers One or Two, this becomes a very important trait. Enter Gama Bomb, an Irish thrash band that loves to sing about Kurt Russell and Robocop. Their nerdy sense of humor has been a beacon on the thrash scene since their 2005 debut, Survival of the Fastest, and in some ways, they could be considered the AC/DC of thrash.” Run for our love!
